Dee's Story Completed
by Cydira
Summary: This is a spin off of Lady Cinnibar's story Ghosts. It focuses on the character of Dee and how she gets involved with the whole situation.
1. Another day at work

The severe lines of her business suit made her look more government then she wanted to, but she wasn't going to worry about it.. Alice had set up the meeting and said something about how the individual in question needed to talk to a professional, placing less then subtle emphasis on the word, in her usual way. Dee brushed a stray wisp of hair out of her eyes and walked up to the door and knocked. In the back of her mind, Dee restrained the urge to mutter some of the vulgarities that came to mind as her hair blew into her eyes for the fourth time in the past ten minutes. She glanced at her watch and knocked again, ignoring the looks that she got from some of the neighbors.  
  
The curtains opened slightly and a frail, waif of a Hispanic woman looked at her through them. The glinting light off of her sleek sunglasses reflected the white door and the dark window. Slowly, the woman opened the door. "Mrs. Rodriguez?" Dee said, fishing a business card out of her pocket, "I'm Deidre Cullain. Your co-worker told me that you're interested in discussing a few legal matters with me." Mrs. Rodriguez's dark eyes looked down at the card as her husband called from the depths of the house, asking who was at the door. Dee saw the slight flinch of fear and restrained the scowl. "Just tell him your discussing life insurance," she said in a low voice, placing a push of magic behind it to encourage the startled woman to make the statement with confidence.  
  
As though by clockwork, the smaller woman made the statement and Dee offered to take her out for coffee. As the two women walked to the car, a hulking beast of a man stormed to the door. He shouted something and Dee again restrained the urge to swear. She opened the door to the battered Ford and nearly pushed the other woman in. "Get in and stay down," Dee said as her stomach wrenched with the icy cold feeling of the Sight hitting her. She could almost hear the rifle being loaded and as she slammed the door behind the terrified woman, Mr. Rodriguez came to the door with a dirty looking rifle and began to aim.  
  
Dee jumped into the driver's seat and slammed the door. Failing to resist the urge to swear loudly as the crack of a gunshot immediately preceeded her back window shattering. She turned the key and threw the car into gear, wincing a little as a few gear ground and then slammed her foot on the accelerator. As the car sped away from the shouting and gunfire, a few of the local heavies came out with their own firepower. As they roared away from the ensuing chaos, Deidre picked up her cell phone and punched a number. "911 dispatch," the voice on the other end of the line said in a bored tone.  
  
"Get some one to the intersection of York and Homewood," Deidre said in precice, clipped tones, "There's an altercation. They'd better hurry." She hung up and looked over at the woman beside her, who was shaking and clearly frightened. "My dear, if he really wants," Deidre said in a dry tone, "He can come have a chat with me before he'll be adding to your collection of bruises." Deidre pulled into the drive way infront of the shelter. "You know, I'd love to help you," she said, looking over at the woman who started talking in a very excited tone after her comment about the gun weilding husband, "But you lost me at el bastardo." She ducked an exaggerated had gesture and pulled into her parking space with a sigh.  
  
'Alice is going to owe me one, again,' Deidre thought as the two women got out of the car and walked into the shelter. "Mari, you'd better help Mrs. Rodrigues. It wasn't explained to me that when she was angry that she spoke Spanish exclusively." As the other woman walked over and the two started talking in rapid fire Spanish, Deidre massaged between her eyebrows, reminded why she hated that class in college and passed it by her teeth. She couldn't understand more then one word when people started talking faster then "See Spot run" at a very slow speed. 


	2. No news is good news

Dee's cellphone rang as she sat down at her desk with a cup of coffee. It was roughly 4 in the afternoon. She finally managed to change out of her "armor" and into her more comfortable work clothes. A nagging suspicion that this was going to lead to a bigger headache then the price quotes for replacing her car's rear window, she flipped open the phone. "Dee," she said, bringing her cup of coffee to her lips. She then nearly dropped it.  
  
"What on earth are you talking about, Alice? How in the nine hells is that possible? I thought that he was bound!" Dee said in a strained whisper when she really felt like shouting. Finding out that a major deamon was loose in your backyard doesn't sound good. Especially when its one that you know is a rather nasty one, as far as major deamons go. Alice's words blurred together as Dee scribbled down a note for the other councilors. On it read, "Emergency case, will be out of office. Leave voice mail. -Dee"  
  
She stood up and walked out of the office, muttering a few choice explitives in her mother tounge as Alice gave her a fairly detailed description of what was going on.  
  
Stalking out of the office, her long coat on and glaring at the low clouds threatening rain, Dee walked to her car. She asked a few questions and then hung up. She got in and started driving, her radar detector warning her of impending speed traps as she pushed her car up near 80 as she got on the freeway. Things never seemed to go right on a Monday, and this week Monday was following her. 


	3. Right before the Chaos begins

Dee pulled up infront of the apartment building, turned her car off, got out, and slammed the door. She debated leaving the keys in so that some little punk could steal. The money on the anti-theft insurance was enough where she'd be better off getting a new car rather then replacing the back window. As she walked over to the entrance to the apartment, she tossed her keys idly in one hand. Alice was standing there, her initial look of relief on her face changing to shock as she saw the state the car was in.  
  
"The secretary for your office is in good hands but you owe me a new rear window," Dee said dryly as she walked past and started through the spacious lobby. 'For some reason they work like hell to make the lobby look better then the apartments here," Dee thought, glancing around and following Alice's lead. "So, what exactly happened?" she started when Alice shook her head. In uneasy silence, the pair walked. "You know, I'm better off is some one steals my car, " Dee said casually, getting a curious look from her friend.  
  
"Yeah, then I won't have to go with the cheapest, oldest model car I can find," Dee said, smoothing her hair and streaching a little. "I'll get to upgrade to an automatic," she said dryly, "No more replacing clutch plates. Unless you know some nice young men that'd be willing to work for peanuts. Then I might spring for the cost of fixing the window, but only if it means that I get a nice bedwarmer out of it." She winked at Alice who groaned, remembering the miserable failure of the last few blind dates that she had set Dee up on.  
  
"No thank you, I don't want to hear about another guy running for the hills because your blade collection made him think you were a serial killer with cult tendancies. I really don't know why you keep your research out in the open like that, I mean what if your family comes over?" Alice said, vaugely remembering how Dee's family didn't feel particularly comfortable about her being a mage. Dee shrugged as they stopped before the door to Alice's apartment.  
  
"Hey, if they don't like it, they can stay out on the west coast," she said, "I'm sick of arguing with them. The only one that doesn't just "tolerate" me is my mother. And she thinks I'm doing this for all the wrong reasons. And the whole collection incident was his own fault. You remember he kept saying that he had a collection too. I didn't expect him to be terrified when I showed him mine and told him that I am getting trained in all of them. I mean who wants to own an arsenel and have no idea of how to use it?" Alice shrugged and Dee followed her into the apartment. The dog wagged it's tail and loped over, expecting affection. As Dee patted it on the head, the cat glanced over and Dee could have sworn there was a look of shock on it's face.  
  
She was handed a cup of coffee and directed over to a chair as the other two women in the kitchen were busily talking about something. As Dee sat down, something told her that things were going to get a lot worse and a lot stranger very soon.  
  
There ya go. Here's a little backstory for the character of Dee.  
  
Thanks Lady Cinnibar for letting me play with her. 


End file.
